Auctionsniper.com is very good and only 20 miles from ebay's servers. But never go less than 5 seconds. You could have a network problem at a crucial monet and end up kicking the dog when you miss the auction because of a timeout. Its even worse when it ws a real bargain and you would have gone a lot highr
If you use auctionsniper, always leave a bid way higher than what the bid is currently at. there is always a battle in the last 30 seconds, so let them fight it out and come in with 5 secsonds. Too late for them to come back at you.
Also a big tip. NEVER LET THE OTHER BIDDERS KNOW THAT YOU ARE THERE. NEVER LEAVE A BID. EVER. If you leave a bid with 4 days still to run, you will be alerting yourself to other bidders and if they use a sniper program will set their highest bid perhaps higher than usual.